Film Gems made in 48 Hours - 'Passengers (Beep)' by Team Beep (Martin Hong)

27 groups of people in
Singapore spent the last weekend crafting a short film within 48 hours under the 48 Hour Film Project. The teams’ tasks were to make a
short film using these elements – Malone Lim or Marilyn Lim the taxi-driver, a
guitar and this line “The book says that it is important not to miss this
step”. As hard as it was for the judges to make their decisions for the many
awards given out at the award presentation on the 8th December 2013, two teams,
Superfly Monkey Dragons and Beep took home with them the most prizes. Our
writer, Gwen, reviews the winning film 'Passengers' and speaks to the Martin Hong, leader of the team Beep.

Review: Passengers

Won for: Best Acting (Drama), Best Cinematography, Best Directing, Best
Film, 48HFP Audience Award

An extremely introverted
taxi-driver on his way off to work witnesses a broken-hearted girl crying her
eyes out at the carpark. The above sentence sums the story up, yet does not
fully play tribute to the wonderful short. It is a sparse script, with little
dialogue, but its emotional intensity not to be undermined. There isn’t much
said, because Ma-Long (very interesting use of the character name given
–Malone) probably has more internal dialogue going on within his head. This
isn’t to say that there was little effort in Passengers in terms of its audio
presentation, because there was even a song written about the girl, “Marilyn”,
showing strong use of the character name Marilyn in regulations with the
competition. Without trying too hard, Passengers delivers a short that uses the
elements given creatively, and makes the audience tickled at the right bits.
Made by students from NTU ADM school, we can be sure that this will not be the
last we hear of them.

Interview with Martin,
Passengers

Thanks for sharing with us
about Passengers. What inspired the story line of this
short?

I think the main idea was about
communication between 2 strangers. One of the earliest ideas involved
just two people sitting in their own cars staring at each
other. Later on as we developed the story, we thought it would be
interesting to maintain it at a non-verbal level. It was also partially a
practical decision; since we knew we had so little time to script the short, we
chose to concentrate more on the acting and characters as opposed to the
dialogue.

'Taxi' was also one of the
elements we were given by the competition, so a lot of creative ideas emerged
from that. The idea of an introverted taxi driver who is used to delivering
customers but never making contact with them, that was also one of our main
premises. I also liked the idea of an entire emotional journey happening
within/around a taxi that never moves.

On a production level, filming
becomes alot easier because you only have 1 location (you can spend more time
on blocking and acting). On a creative level, it also allows you to focus more
on the characters and their motivations instead of planning a whole sequence of
events happening. I think for short films less is definitely more.

There wasn’t much dialogue for
the male lead – and he won the Best Actor for Drama. How did you get your cast
member to bring in so much depth to his character?

Roy was amazing in his
interpretation of the character. He fleshed out most of his character by
himself, and improved on many of the actions like the cleaning of the steering
wheel or the way the character walks in straight lines . During the rehearsals
when we were discussing the character's backstory, Roy already had certain
histories that he thought of for the taxi driver. He was constantly trying new
ways of revealing the taxi driver's character without being too blatant. The
lack of dialogue also meant every minute action on screen became more
significant, but Roy was always aware of his character's motivations, which was
what made the performance so convincing.

I used to over-direct my actors
but now I try to give them as much freedom as possible. I think directors
should help actors breathe their roles as naturally as possible, not to dictate
every single result or action. With this freedom I think actors feel more
comfortable 'existing' as their characters and this allows them to give their
most naturalistic performances.

I also have to mention that
Clarice, our female lead, was also extremely professional. It was very
emotionally straining for her to keep crying and breaking out of character
(because we didn't shoot chronologically), but she was always in high spirits
and never once complained. Even though her character had less screen time than
Roy's, she brought a sense of fragility to the character that was very sincere,
and her performance also made it easier for Roy to bounce off as well. We're
very fortunate that both our leads had the same passion and commitment to their
characters.

I noticed that the radio
broadcaster’s voice sounded really familiar (and professional). Did you use a
recording of an actual talk show or have a voice actor record it?

The voice-over and the final
radio song were all recorded and produced during the competition. The guy
behind the voice was actually Long Hao, the 'neighbour' in the first scene,
which was also our 1st A.D. (in budget filmmaking this is what happens). He
wasn't a trained actor, but he was naturally very eloquent.

We actually had him try it
different tonal variations, and eventually we took the one that sounded more
exaggerated and feminine, which somehow worked perfectly! Jonathan Chan, our
music and sound designer, did an excellent job in creating the tacky
radio-program music for the scene. We asked him to go over the top with it, and
I think the kitschy music contrasted really nicely with Roy's subtle
expressions.

What were some difficulties you
(or/and your team) faced in making Passengers?

I think the lack of time was
probably the biggest issue. The pre-production process was insanely short, but
our producer Terrance, took charge of the whole situation
effortlessly. Everyone was rushing frantically but every member was
committed to their task; no one slacked off for a moment. We're so blessed
to have such a strong team, and everyone was on the same page from the very
start, which made the whole process very efficient.

Within a few hours we had our
taxi (which was generously lent to us by another friend, Nelson), our cast, our
location and props. Long Hao and Farreha doubled up on roles, working both on
and off set to get everything together. Our production crew which included Hong
Kun, Jasmine, Victor, Nelson, Rui Wei and Warren, were also extremely
efficient and co-operative throughout the shoot. The shoot itself was pretty
smooth.

There were some technical
problems initially but our DOP Kelvin Chew resolved them really fast. Usually,
Kelvin and I work with moodboards and storyboards planned before shoot, but
because of the nature of the competition we didn't have time. Hence all the
shots were planned during the shoot itself, and I'm so glad Kelvin was in this
because he made sure every shot could transition from the next
seamlessly.

Film making can be incredibly
expensive. Yet sometimes, it doesn’t even have to cost a cent. Just
curious, how much was spent on the filming of Passengers and what
incurred the expenditure? (Also, did you have an actual functioning guitar
thrown on the carpark floor?)

We spent about SGD 420 in total,
about $100 for transport, $45 for food, $100 for equipment and $170 for
the competition registration.

We were also fortunate to obtain
some sound equipment from our school, NTU, as well as Kian Teck for allowing us
to use his studio as our HQ.

As for the guitar scene, it was
all real. Initially we were discussing if we could just stuff the guitar case
(since you don't actually see it), but then the weight of it hitting the floor
won't be realistic. And the scene was important because we needed the show the
boyfriend doing something completely ‘douchey’ to the girl. So in the end
Terrance sacrificed his guitar. Surprisingly, even with multiple
takes the guitar is actually still in okay condition.

How long did it take for you to
i. write the screenplay ii. Film the short iii. Have it edited? Did you and
your team get to sleep at all during the 48 hours?

It took 45 minutes to write the
script, 4 hours to film, editing took the most amount of time, about a whole
day. The post-production included foley sounds, colour grading and the
recording of the radio DJ, so there were quite a few elements to assemble.

We did manage to sleep a little.
We staggered so that the whole workflow would be more efficient. I think for
the main team, we slept about 5-7 hours in total for both days. It was
extremely draining but I think all our late-night productions we done
previously trained us for this competition haha.

Stay tuned here at SINdie as we are trying to get our hands on this winning clip. We will post it here once available.

About Martin

Born and raised in Singapore, 23
year-old Martin Hong is currently studying at Nanyang Technological
University's School of Art Design & Media (ADM). He is majoring in Digital
Filmmaking. He is also part of a young multidisciplinary collective
called Freight, which had
core members in this production.

He is currently a participant of
the 2013 ASEAN-ROK Film Leaders Incubator (FLY) program, a
workshop to nurture film-talented youth and to build up human infrastructure
for a variety of film productions in the 10 ASEAN countries and Korea.